The present invention concerns a floss bow, in particular a bow employing replaceable floss.
As known, floss is available to the end user substantially in two formats: one as a spool of floss in small dispensing boxes, the other as a length of floss kept taut on a supporting fork or bow. The present invention refers to this last sector, which will therefore be the subject of the following description.
According to the prior art, sections of floss are tightened and fastened to the ends of a pair of tines belonging to a bow or fork device, typically made of cheap plastics. The bow may be of a minimal size, but it sometimes appears awkward to handle, or it may also comprise a more substantial handle to be gripped by a hand.
Since a short length of floss may be employed few times, these bows are generally designed to be inexpensive because they are then disposed of together with the floss. Where they have a handle, it has already been suggested to make the bow portion disengageable from the handle portion (for example the Reach® Access™ system manufactured by Johnson & Johnson), so as to reduce the amount of plastics disposed of every time.
However, the plastic portion which is disposed of together with the floss is nevertheless considerable, since it comprises at least the two support tines with the common strengthening body.
In order to partly overcome this problem it has been suggested to apply spools of floss on a handle provided with an end bow: thereby the floss is tightened between the bow tines and replaced, as it is being used, with the floss stored in the spool. An example found on the market is Flosbrush® manufactured for John O. Butler Company.
In this case no plastic components are disposed of, but handling of the floss is very awkward and fastening of the floss to the tine ends is neither intuitive nor easy for everybody.
Moreover, in all the bows available so far, the problem still exists of best defining the distance between the support tines and hence the length of the useful floss segment. As a matter of fact, such length is always a compromise between a minimum size—which, however, implies quick floss consumption and poor mobility between teeth—and a maximum dimension, determined by the need to easily introduce the tool in the mouth.
Again, the arrangement and orientation of the useful length of floss over the gripping portion or the handle are univocally determined, although they are not ideal to clean every part of the dental arch: here, too, it is hence still necessary to operate a compromise choice.